In a not-so-recent discussion with a friend I was asked about my past (a true-believing Mormon or TBM) and how I got to where I am now (partnered to someone of the same sex). That’s not an easy question to answer but I’ll do my best to answer this question. My assumption is many who read my blog have this same question. And before I answer this question I’d like to openly state that my purpose in explaining these things is not recruit any one to my way of thinking; it’s merely to explain for those who would like to understand. Hopefully it will also explain how other people also get from point A to point B in their own “spiritual journeys”.

To start, I’ll take you down memory lane. Around my 18th birthday is when my spiritual journey started. Growing up in Utah, the religion to which I was exposed was the Mormon church. Due to the passing of a family member, I began to take religion more seriously: Is there life after death? Will I be with my family in the after life? Am I worthy to live with them in the Celestial Kingdom? Those are the questions I asked, and I decided the answers to questions were an emphatic yes and subsequently served a full-time mission for the LDS Church. I was called to the Baltic Mission (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), served two years, and loved almost about everything about it (at the time). More on that later.

Me on an LDS mission in Estonia

In preparation to serve, I went through the temple in Logan Utah. I think this is when my first doubts about religion began. Sitting in the temple ceremony I asked, “What in the world have I gotten myself into?” I felt like I had hopped on the wrong bus and it was taking me somewhere I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. My main concern was the subordination of women to men and the realization that LDS women will probably never be equal in status to LDS men. If I marry a woman in an LDS temple one day, could I ask her to submit to me? And would I be okay with my role as a mediator between her and God — that her relationship with God would be defined not as a direct relationship with God but her relationship to me as I sort of shield her from God. Another concern was the fact that I couldn’t get up and leave without being stigmatized and without embarrassing my family or letting them down.

LDS temple in Logan, Utah

You see, social pressure is a huge part of Mormonism. I couldn’t acknowledge my true feelings about that experience for fear of being kicked out, both in the literal sense of being kicked out of the temple and in the metaphorical sense of being rejected by Mormons. Actually, I did acknowledge my thoughts to a few close friends shortly after going through the temple for the first time. They asked, “So, what was it like?” and I resisted expected responses like “I felt like I was home” or “I felt so close to heaven”. I said, “I had a testimony of the Church until now.” As another blogger explained, the LDS Church is really good at enforcing social expectations to keep everyone “in the bounds of ‘acceptable’ behavior”. He speculated that the LDS Church provides a place of community (but you have to give up individuality to fit in). So, to fit in, I didn’t talk about those feelings with any one else. I didn’t want to lose friends; good friends are hard to find.

Jaani kirik (St. John's church) in Tartu, Estonia

Castle in Russia as seen across the river from Narva, Estonia

My experience in the Church continued to be one of living up to social expectations. That’s just how it seems to works. As a missionary, I tried to live up to the expectation of being a challenging and testifying missionary. My very first day in the mission field I was challenged by someone from another faith. My testimony about my church was met by the testimony from someone else about her church; she spoke with as much conviction as me. The solution other missionaries seemed to use was to speak down on members of other religions: “He’s such a good person. Too bad he’s Lutheran; he won’t make it to heaven.” As a lay service member of my local congregation (post-mission), I continued to live up to social expectations despite not really feeling all the things I was supposed to be feeling about the Church.

LDS (Mormon) chapel in Tallin, Estonia where I served as a missionary for two years.

What was I supposed to be feeling? No one really seems to know. It’s not science. You’ll just know when you feel it. Boyd K. Packer claimed it’s just like trying to explain what salt tastes like:

Such an idea came into my mind and I said to the atheist, “Let me ask if you know what salt tastes like.”

“Of course I do,” was his reply.

“When did you taste salt last?”

“I just had dinner on the plane.”

“You just think you know what salt tastes like,” I said.

He insisted, “I know what salt tastes like as well as I know anything.”

“If I gave you a cup of salt and a cup of sugar and let you taste them both, could you tell the salt from the sugar?”

“Now you are getting juvenile,” was his reply. “Of course I could tell the difference. I know what salt tastes like. It is an everyday experience—I know it as well as I know anything.”

“Then,” I said, “assuming that I have never tasted salt, explain to me just what it tastes like.”

After some thought, he ventured, “Well-I-uh, it is not sweet and it is not sour.”

“You’ve told me what it isn’t, not what it is.”

My friend, spiritually speaking, I have tasted salt. I am no more able to convey to you in words how this knowledge has come than you are to tell me what salt tastes like.

The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord (Proverbs 20:27). I'm not really sure what that means.

And that’s the whole crux of Mormonism: it’s true because you just know it is even though you can’t really explain how or why. But as a Mormon you can’t stop there. You then have the responsibility to share what you know with others (even if you don’t really know). Packer continued:

Oh, if I could teach you this one principle. A testimony is to be found in the bearing of it! Somewhere in your quest for spiritual knowledge, there is that “leap of faith,” as the philosophers call it. It is the moment when you have gone to the edge of the light and stepped into the darkness to discover that the way is lighted ahead for just a footstep or two.

My service in the Church was exactly that: me telling others what I knew to be true before I ever felt or believed it was true. That is the part of the mission experience I didn’t like. As Viktor Frankl contended, it seemed my whole mission experience was “depict[ing]…God as a being who is primarily concerned with being believed in by the greatest possible number of believers, and along the lines of a specified creed at that” (Man’s Search for Ultimate Meaning, p. 17). Those experiences didn’t stop there, however. I continued my service in the Church for several years after returning home from missionary service. I continued to tell people I knew things I didn’t really believe hoping to have the promised experiences.

So what do I believe now?

Saying that one religion is true is like saying that one point in the evolutionary history of a species is “true.” religions are cultural institutions and as such are subject to eventual and gradual change as they adapt. Those members of the religion that hold counter-productive views will not spread those beliefs and those that have effective, pro-social views will pass on the traits of their religion. This is how a religion, like a species, evolves (B.F. Skinner, Beyond Freedom and Dignity, p 128).

Many people assume cats aren’t trainable; have you ever seen a cat play dead, roll over, bark on command, or play fetch? And if you don’t believe cats are trainable, would you believe goldfish are trainable?

This isn’t an Onion video! And it isn’t a gimmick to get people to buy a fancy, expensive training kit for their lazy, boring goldfish. Ogden Lindsley, one of B. F. Skinner’s first graduate students, had his students train gold fish. He explains the process here.

Here’s an excellent book by Karen Pryor on training animals (and even people). She describes principles of behavior in understandable terms and how these principles are used to train any animal.

I’ve recently learned just how trainable cats are: After a few days of a several 5-minute clicker training sessions, Misha and Carmen seem to be picking up on target training. Either that or they just like to chase the fuzzy orange pipe cleaner attached to the end of the target stick. I suspect this isn’t the case, though, because most of the time they walk up to the target and sometimes even touch the target with their noses. Maybe I’ll collect and graph data on their performance… Anyway, Carmen seems to be a little more challenging: She’s a picky and slow eater and hasn’t shown much interest in dry treats, which have been easier to use than wet food. When I tried training Misha with wet food he went a little crazy (watching him you’d think he hadn’t eaten in days) and training sessions ended with him covered in pulverized fish guts (i.e., the wet food).

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Regardless, I’m excited to continue clicker training our cats Misha and Carmen, and who knows, maybe they can learn to play dead, roll over, and play fetch.

In this post I would like to describe, in a little more detail, my experiences as a same-sex or same-gender attracted (gay) Mormon through the story of Steven Wilson (as interviewed by Steven Densley Junion of the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research). In short, I would like to tell the story of nearly every gay Mormon and their pursuit of happiness. In the interview (Why would a gay man with AIDS join the [LDS] Church), Wilson describes his experiences of meeting a returned missionary at a gay bar, eventually moving in with him, joining the Church, and how his association with members of the LDS faith helped him abandon “the homosexual lifestyle”.

Wilson’s story isn’t completely unfamiliar to me. I attended support groups (e.g., LDS Family Services, Evergreen) and firesides intended to fortify my relationship with the Church, its leaders, and members. At Evergreen support groups, I learned that if I want to stay in the Church I need to stay single and celibate and wait for the resurrection or marry or woman.

As I became more entangled in Evergreen and other support groups, I learned that it’s possible to pray away the gay. The solution to the gay problem is simple: keep every commandment and get plenty of (nonsexual) healthy touch from other men. Voila! You’re cured. Let me explain the concept of healthy touch (for those who aren’t familiar). The theory behind male homosexuality is gay men didn’t bond enough with their fathers and/or male peers and sexualized their need for male affection to make up for it. So, you need to bond with other men, even get in some “healthy touch” (e.g., hugs, cuddles, holding), to mitigate the sexual attractions. (Be warned: the next video clip has some vulgarity).

I was actually invited to a “holding party” once. Well, two holding parties (but the second wasn’t advertised as a holding party). I didn’t go to the first one because when others described their experiences, it freaked me out. I was informed that I would be held by an older member of the group (as a father might hold a young son in his arms) and I would talk to him about my experience: how does it feel, what am I thinking, what am I feelings, etc. The experiences of others included talking about how it aroused them and learning to “talk through it” rather than fantasize about it. The other holding party didn’t involve older men, so I went. It was an emotional roller coaster as I watched guys (some of whom were engaged to girls at the time) snuggle up with any and everyone present. The sexual tension was high. And what should I have expected? A bunch of gay Mormon guys who aren’t getting any visiting a place far away from home (what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas kind of a thing).

I learned there are a number of additional organizations to help facilitate change in orientation:

Although not all of these organizations are designed to cure same-sex attraction, many gay Mormons recommended these programs to me as helpful in resolving the underlying causes of “the gay”. The most interesting to me is Journey into Manhood (JiM). For those wanting to know exactly what happens at Journey into Manhood weekends, Ted Cox describes his experience with alarming detail. Here’s a thoughtful perspective on JiM by the Original Mohomie. And for the lazy reader, here’s a little clip about JiM:

It’s weird to watch that video clip because I know most of the guys interviewed.

At firesides, I learned that if I want to stay in the Church I need to hate everything that is or might possibly be gay and fight against it. A man at one particular fireside shared a story similar to Wilson’s experience: he lived “the homosexual lifestyle”, turned away from his life as a porn star and addict, and converted to the LDS faith. Like Wilson, he referred to “the gay lifestyle” as a lifestyle of drugs, sex, and rock ‘n’ roll. He encouraged everyone present to avoid the very appearance of evil: don’t date members of the same sex, don’t do drugs, don’t drink alcohol; in short, don’t be gay. At the time, I had already begun dating and learned enough to know that “the gay lifestyle” he spoke of was nothing more than “his lifestyle“. I didn’t think it was fair to pass judgement on an entire group’s lifestyle based on personal experiences.

But I was used to judgement being passed. In Logan, I organized social events which later took on the name “Logansides” — firesides for gay Mormons in Logan, Utah. The firesides were intended to be nothing more than a social gathering for members of the LDS faith who are gay/lesbian or know someone who is gay/lesbian. Advertising was complicated: People not of the LDS faith thought I was starting an ex-gay ministry and people of the LDS faith thought I was spreading the infamous “gay agenda”. And then there were the ultra conservative gay Mormons who were vocal about the fact that I organized firesides and dated men (and eventually married). I learned for myself that it’s next to impossible to unite liberal and conservative Mormons when it comes to this social issue.

In short, what turned me off to the Mormon solution to the gay problem is the unkindness and intolerance experienced at the hand of gay Mormons. Oh, and none of these Mormons solutions I discussed made sense to me. Ultimately, these “solutions” led to an increase of unhappiness and frustration. Thus, I began my own pursuit of happiness that steered me away from the traditional gay Mormon path and away from experiences like those of Steven Wilson.

I didn’t think it was possible to accuse BYU of being too liberal in regards to their stance on social issues like homosexuality. I was wrong. Surprisingly, it seems their efforts to fight “the gay movement” were inspired by their experiences with their son when they learned he is gay. But don’t worry, he found the box that’s gay and crushed it (so now he isn’t gay any more).

A. Dean Byrd, former president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH)

I recently came across this blog post that lists quotes from the book. To summarize, apparently the authors are of the opinion that gays (and lesbians) are pedophiles in that they “yearn for any-and-all sexual behavior to be permissible” including “adult-child sex”, “exploitation of children by adults”, “decriminaliz[ation] of sex between adults and adolescents”, etc. (I’m not sure whether these are accurate quotes because I’m referencing a second-hand source – I have no interest in reading a book that appears to be fairly biased.) The authors probably cite statistics such as these to support their claims.

I’m no expert on the pathology of pedophilia, but I am an expert on my life, and I’m familiar with the lives of my friends. I disagree with the conclusions these authors make based on my personal convictions and experiences and the convictions and experiences of my friends. There are many forms and types of sexual behavior that I (we) think should remain illegal including “adult-child” sex. In fact, I spent one year of my undergraduate career educating my campus community on the adverse effects of sexual assault. In short, sweeping generalizations such as those asserted in this book are incredibly aggravating, dishonest, and problematic. And I really hope few people accept these statements and opinions as truth.

I invite readers of this blog to share their thoughts on the assertions of A. Dean Byrd and Douglas A. Abbot regarding the myth that gays and lesbians are pedophiles.

It goes without saying that parents are afraid of at least one thing: the possibility that one of their children may one day identify as gay or lesbian. It is easy to understand the fear. Will my child be bullied at school? Will he be fired from a job for being gay? Will she be denied academic opportunities because she is lesbian? Will he fall victim to hate crimes like Mathew Shepard?

Some of the fears might be based on the possibility of unrealized expectations: Will I have grandchildren? Will I have a daughter- or son-in-law? For LDS (Mormon) parents these last questions have eternal importance: Will I be in heaven with my gay child in the next life? Will he or she be sealed to a companion (of opposite gender) for eternity? Or will my child go to the Telestial Kingdom? In short, what would you do if your child is that one — the one who is gay?

Perhaps these questions fueled the publication of the book Encouraging Heterosexuality: Helping Children Develop a Traditional Sexual Orientation. This book, as you might guess from the title, is about an “approach which…demonstrates how faith, tradition and science are complementary in the search for what is best for children” (DeseretBook.com). Deseret Book also notes that “Their message is… parents can prefer and encourage heterosexuality in their children and can do so without disrespect of criticism for those who believe or differently [sic]”.

I don’t disagree with Deseret Book: parents really can do all those things. Many probably have and many more will with support and permission from Deseret Book and the authors. My question is about the ethics behind encouraging a child to become heterosexual, especially when those methods assume that “most of those who later identify as homosexual report gender nonconformity in their histories”.

In my opinion, the mechanism behind encouraging heterosexuality in children is negative reinforcement. I’m not referring to the mechanism that controls the behavior of the child but the mechanism that controls the behavior of the parent. That is, “If I engage in behavior X (e.g., removal of feminine toys) then my child will stop engaging in behavior Y (e.g., playing with feminine toys).” Negative reinforcement, by definition, increases the likelihood (so long as the child’s behavior is stops) that the parent will continue to engage in behavior X.

The ethical component comes in when the child’s behavior ceases for a time: what effect will this have on the parent’s behavior? He or she is more likely to increase the intensity of their behavior (extinction burst). And should that behavior come in contact with reinforcement as a result of the extinction burst, the behavior will continue to be shaped up and become more intense until the parent resorts to punishment.

Punishment procedures have even been used. Read for yourself in the actual study from the publication on page 180 using the search term “spanking” or “physical punishment”. And what happened at in-home therapy sessions? Siblings report their brother was beaten rather than spanked for engaging in feminine behavior at home. Not surprisingly, this child committed suicide later in life.

So should we encourage heterosexuality in children? I don’t know. But I do know we need to be careful about how we treat children. The consequences speak for themselves.

Hopefully we follow the example of Linda from the video above:

“God, please help me find the right words! Don’t let me screw this up! I wanted to tear into him! Instead, she reports “I felt loving arms embrace us both… That moment lasted for hours with the only words spoken…

Like this:

I first heard this story on This American Life. In short, Stephen J. Gould’s succinctly states what I think is the message of the short story below. Gould says:

“We pass through this life but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsley identified as lying within” (The Mismeasure of Man, pp. 60-61).

The implications for society are inspiring: it’s easy to judge, condemn, and hate when observing another through the lens subjectivity yet when faced with similar circumstances we may very well behave just like the person judged, condemned, or hated. Such was (and is) the case with women, Blacks, the poor, people with learning disabilities, people with mental illness, gays and lesbians, and many other minorities.

Limits are too often imposed from without and identified as lying within.

The white rat had been sick for as long as he could remember. If it wasn’t a headache, it was an upset stomach, a sore throat, an eye infection. Pus seeped from his gums. His ears rang, and what little he ate went right through him. Now came the news that he had pancreatic cancer, which was actually something of a relief. “Finally I can die,” he moaned to his new roommate. She was a female, also white and had arrived only that morning.

The tank they shared was made of glass, its walls soiled here and there with bloody paw prints and flecks of vomit. “Well,” she sighed, wincing at the state of her new home, “I’m sorry to say it, but if you have a terminal illness it’s nobody’s fault but your own.”

“I beg your pardon?” said the white rat.

The female approached the water bottle, stuck her paws in the spigot, and began to wash them. “It’s nice to believe that these sicknesses just ‘befall’ us,” she said. “We blame them on our environment and insist that they could happen to anyone, but in truth we bring them on ourselves with hatefulness and negativity.”

The white rat coughed up some phlegm with bits of lung in it. “So this is my fault?”

“Oh, I think it’s been proven,” the female said. “You might not have realized how negative you were being—maybe you were passive aggressive. Maybe no one cared enough to point it out, but I have to call things like I see them. Just as everyone does to me, only in the opposite direction. ‘How cause you’re always so sunny?’ they ask, and ‘Doesn’t your mouth hurt from all that smiling?’ Some interpret it as over exuberance, but to me it’s a kind of vaccine—as long as I’m happy and I love everybody, I can’t get sick.”

“Never?” asked the white rat.

“Oh, I had a flu once, but it was completely my own fault. Someone I mistook for a friend took to criticizing me behind my back—saying things regarding my weight and so forth. I got wind of it, and for all of three minutes I wished her ill. I’m not talking death, just a little discomforting—cramping, mainly. I was just starting to visualize it when I sneezed, which was my body’s way of saying, ‘Whoa,’ you know, ‘that’s not cool.’ Then my nose stopped up and I came down with a fever.”

“And what about your supposed friend, the one who said cruel things behind your back? If you got a flu, what happened to her?” asked the white rat.

“Well, nothing yet,” the female said, “But sometimes the body bides its time.” Her pink eyes narrowed just slightly. “I can bet that when something does happen, though, it’ll be a lot worse than a flu. Diabetes, maybe.”

“You sound pretty hopeful,” the white rat observed.

The female scowled, then smiled so hard the corners of her touched her eyes. “Not at all. I wish her the best.”

The white rat slumped against the wall and put a hand to his forehead. “I can’t think of anybody I dislike. Then too, I’ve been alone since my last roommate died.”

“That’s another cause of cancer,” the female told him. “You need to get out, socialize. Storytelling is pivotal to our well-being, as are nonethnic jokes and riddles.” Food pellets dropped from a chute beside the water bottle, and she took a bite of one. “I heard somewhere that limericks can cure both heart disease and certain types of cancer. Can you beat that? Limericks!”

“Oh, right,” said the rat, silently recalling one about a prostitute and a dead cat, he chuckled. “And what about haiku? Are they good for curing shorter diseases?”

“I know when I’m being mocked,” the female said, “but that’s okay. You’re sick and are going to die. I, meanwhile, am perfectly healthy with good teeth and a positive attitude toward life, so joke away if it makes you feel any better.”

She’d just cracked open that smile of hers when the mesh ceiling parted and a human hand appeared. At first it seemed to be made of wax, that’s how rigid and opaque it was, but as it neared and pinned her to the floor, the female smelled rubber and understood that it was encased in a glove. Then came a second hand, this one bearing a hypodermic needle, and as the tip sank into her stomach, releasing its mad punch of viruses, the white rat settle against the wood chips and thought.

Most limericks, it seemed to him, involved a place. “There was a young mole from Des Moines,” say, or “In Yorktown there once lived a ferret.” He didn’t know where he was, though. It was a lab, obviously, but the location was anyone’s guess. With this in mind, he came up with the following:

A she-rat I had as a roomie
said illness just strikes if you’re gloomy.
Since she was infected
with AIDS, I’ve detected
an outlook a lot less perfumy.